Ask Richard: Pakistani Longs to Live Openly as an Atheist

I am 32 Male and a Pakistani Passport holder living in Pakistan, and of course, I am an atheist although I cannot live my life freely as an atheist rather I live here as a slave. I wonder sometime that don’t I have right to live my life as I wish to? Rather than being a hypocrite.

Here in Pakistan if someone with wrong intentions or with wrong beliefs knows that I am an atheist born in a Muslim family then firstly they will kill me in hope of 72 Virgins, secondly there is no law in Pakistan which protects people like me. Please guide me what to do? I at least cant live a life of a hypocrite.

Regards, Masood

Dear Masood,

Be gentler with yourself. You are not living the life of a hypocrite, you are living the life of a hostage.

Ironically, many of the tactics that religions use to preserve their credibility only serve to undermine their credibility. A religion that cannot retain its adherents by the strength of its own virtues, but must keep them captive on pain of death is nothing more than a despotic system of extortion. Religious beliefs that cannot stand up to simple questioning and scrutiny, but must be protected by laws and customs dictating punishment and execution are beliefs that are decrepit, hollow, and corrupt. A person’s religious faith that must be coddled and sheltered from the slightest suggestion of doubt is a faith that has less strength, less substance, and less significance than a soap bubble.

Most religions use methods of coercion and isolation to keep their grip on human minds. The only difference between them is in the severity of those methods, and that severity has gradually changed as history has stumbled along in its drunken, bloody path. Christianity used to impose laws and customs just as draconian as those you are enduring. Now, for the most part atheists who leave Christianity suffer at worst social ostracizing or shunning. That can be awful, but it’s not lethal.

So being forced to pretend that you’re a devout Muslim on pain of death is not hypocrisy. It’s simple self-preservation. You’re just trying to say alive.

And you must do whatever it takes to stay alive. You cannot hope to be free if you’re dead. You must quietly, cautiously, and patiently work to improve your own situation in small ways, finding safe friends you can trust for mutual support and encouragement.

So although your situation is difficult and risky, there is reason for hope, and you definitely have comrades in Pakistan. Find them, communicate with them, build alliances, give each other hope and strength, and work together for a future in which Pakistan will be free from the bondage of forced religion. Even if you might not see it entirely accomplished in your lifetime, you can quietly encourage and add to a foundation of rational, tolerant, open-minded, and inquisitive thinking so that Pakistanis who live after you will have a chance to think and believe as they wish. Knowing that you are contributing to that goal even in small ways will help you to see yourself as a strong, worthy person who is fighting back in a positive way, rather than being a helpless victim.

Some people might suggest that you should use the passport you mentioned and emigrate from Pakistan to some country where you can be free to be openly atheist. But I would not blithely propose that as if it would be an easy thing to do. To leave one’s homeland, family, friends, and culture to become a stranger in a strange land must be a terribly anguishing thing to suffer, and you might even have to avoid living among other Pakistani expatriates, because they might pose a danger to you if they learned that you’re an atheist. If you can accept all that heartbreak and upheaval, then that might be an option for you. Since the beginning of religion, there have been refugees from religious tyranny. My ancestors came to my country for that reason.

I wish that I could offer you more than just some encouragement and a couple of web links. As a human to a human, it is painfully frustrating to be so unable to effectively help you. I am writing from thousands of miles away, within the safety of a country that still enjoys religious freedom. That freedom is constantly being eroded from within by people who would, if they could, create a Christian version of the theocratic nightmare that currently engulfs your country. Your experience is a warning and a spur to remind us to be vigilant and diligent in preserving our liberty.

I hope that someday you will enjoy freedom too. Please be careful, be safe, stay positive, and if you can do so without risk, please write again occasionally to let us know how you are coping.

Richard

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